In the age of the Internet and social media, and with many people in various countries of the world seeking medical advice and information from these means, a new type of star has emerged, who are doctors and nurses who provide their advice and information via the Internet, and are followed by tens and hundreds of thousands across the network.
Vanna Padilla, a licensed dermatologist, for example, has built an online following of more than 92,000 followers by providing skincare tips on Tiktok and Instagram. (Instagram), according to what the "Forbes" platform mentioned in a recent report.
Padilla said that she started publishing content about skin care and beauty on social media 3 years ago to reach more people and generate additional income for her, and she started providing tips for treating acne and anti-aging, and recommendations for buying pharmacy products that do not require a prescription, in addition to lessons in makeup.
Through partnerships with healthcare and beauty apparel brands, Padilla has slowly begun to monetize her content. A TikTok video promoting a Kopari Beauty product brought in two weeks' wages at her day job.
But Padilla seemed to have gone too far when she embarked on a virtual consultation, announcing her intention to launch a "Skin Care Expert Course" that would teach other healthcare providers and skincare enthusiasts information on how to get rid of acne, and the procedures she used to treat patients for ailments. different skin.
Padilla was fired from her job for violating the terms of the contract signed with the company, as the company considered her a competitor, as well as for violating the limits and ethics of the profession with her activity and indirect encouragement to her followers not to refer to dermatologists completely, and to suffice with the advice and treatments she provides to them.
Misinformation related to diets reached 36% (Shutterstock)
Tik Tok stars
Padilla is not alone, as there are a large number of doctors and nurses who have become stars on the Internet and social media, specifically during and after the Corona pandemic, and among them is Dr. Jason Campbell, a 31-year-old resident doctor in Portland, Oregon, who used to work He's been in hospital nearly 24 hours a day during the coronavirus pandemic, taking only short breaks.
Campbell discovered the TikTok platform and began filming and publishing short videos on the platform, and in just a few weeks he had already amassed more than 208,000 followers and more than a million likes for his videos, according to Buzzfeed news.
Campbell is one of the medical professionals who have used social media platforms such as TikTok and Instagram to great success during and after the pandemic, and their videos have been incredibly popular, with doctors and nurses being hailed everywhere as heroes in the fight against the virus.
In fact, medical professionals, including doctors and nurses, have been working through social media for years, but they have shined during the pandemic and beyond, especially in light of the comprehensive transformation towards everything that is digital, including primary health care, digital clinics via the Internet, and many other transformations in various sectors.
Currently, there is one in 5 Americans who seek help for health problems that occur to them through social media, especially the most famous TikTok platform in this field, according to Forbes in its aforementioned report.
A recent CharityRx survey of 2,000 adults in the US found that 1 in 5 Americans trust health influencers on social media more than they do doctors in the real world.
The study also found that about 65% of Americans turn to Google first to search for solutions to their health problems before consulting their doctors.
It even led to the formation of the Association for Healthcare Social Media in 2019 to help the medical community use these platforms "responsibly" as educational tools.
YouTube, the most lucrative site for content creators, encourages licensed doctors and nurses to share their experiences online, and recently launched a program to rank and boost medical content creators' videos in search and discovery.
“People will go online and search for information, and they will act on the information that they find, and we make sure that that information is accurate,” Dr. Garth Graham, a practicing cardiologist and global director of healthcare at Google, which owns YouTube, told Forbes. This is important because we give people access to information they didn't have before or didn't know."
There is a lot of misleading and wrong medical information spread through the Internet and various social media (Shutterstock)
Lots of medical misinformation
A scientific study recently published by the "National Library of Medicine" platform found that there is a lot of misleading and erroneous medical information spread through the Internet and various social media, and misinformation was more prevalent in information related to smoking, reaching about 87% in some cases. Also, misinformation about vaccines was very common (43%), and the percentage of misinformation related to diet reached 36%. As for noncommunicable diseases, misinformation reached 40%, especially in the case of cancer.
Digitization has become an essential part of our lives, and the Internet and social media have become a major driver and direct actor in every part of our contemporary world. However, our health is the most important, and we never advise readers to trust everything they find through these means, even if the owners claim to be doctors and experts. .
Visit your doctor and take advice from him, as he is the only person you can trust, and also hold him accountable if he makes a mistake. As for social media, it is very difficult to hold accountable the misleading and wrongdoers, and there are many of them in our time.